- Chapter 3
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Chapter 3
Agonostis, Chief Fallen Angel in Charge of Lust and Fornication, buried his head in his hands and groaned. The quarterly numbers were in, and they were bad. Very, very bad.
Lust was still running well, but any idiot could sell lust—and he knew it, and he knew Lucifer knew it. Fornication was down, though. Adultery had dropped off a point and a third in the last quarter, down another point from the quarter before. If this continued, he was going to be hanging in his own little solitary space over the Infinite Nothing, like the lowliest of damned souls.
Diseases, he thought darkly. His problems were all because of diseases. Morality was no better than it had ever been—in fact, in many places and many ways, it was worse. But Jezerael, Chief Fallen Angel in Charge of Plagues, Illnesses and Social Diseases had gotten in good with the Big Guy, and had wangled out double the funding Agonostis had received on her research grants every year for the past fifteen years. And the daughter of a motherless pissant had spent every damned solidus on communicable diseases. Plotting, damn her eyes. She'd had this all figured out fifteen years ago—Agonostis would bet every soul in his laboratory on it.
Now Earth had untreatable tuberculosis, virulent syphilis, AIDS, and herpes simplex type II. Everything was becoming resistant to penicillin—Agonostis' one-time favorite drug, since it made fornication so safe—and other drugs were becoming less effective, too. And even if he got those problems licked—and his lab techs were working as fast as they could to beat every single one of Jezerael's diseases—Agonostis figured his archenemy probably had new strains of Black Plague and typhoid waiting in the wings.
Agonostis had worked the condom angle as hard as he could, but people were getting smarter. They were realizing that condoms broke or slipped at inopportune times, or were defective—and they were starting to abstain.
Business was looking bad. And fornication used to be such a fun line of work.
What I need, he thought, is a miracle.
Unfortunately, miracles were hard to come by in Hell.
Back | Next
Contents
Framed
- Chapter 3
Back | Next
Contents
Chapter 3
Agonostis, Chief Fallen Angel in Charge of Lust and Fornication, buried his head in his hands and groaned. The quarterly numbers were in, and they were bad. Very, very bad.
Lust was still running well, but any idiot could sell lust—and he knew it, and he knew Lucifer knew it. Fornication was down, though. Adultery had dropped off a point and a third in the last quarter, down another point from the quarter before. If this continued, he was going to be hanging in his own little solitary space over the Infinite Nothing, like the lowliest of damned souls.
Diseases, he thought darkly. His problems were all because of diseases. Morality was no better than it had ever been—in fact, in many places and many ways, it was worse. But Jezerael, Chief Fallen Angel in Charge of Plagues, Illnesses and Social Diseases had gotten in good with the Big Guy, and had wangled out double the funding Agonostis had received on her research grants every year for the past fifteen years. And the daughter of a motherless pissant had spent every damned solidus on communicable diseases. Plotting, damn her eyes. She'd had this all figured out fifteen years ago—Agonostis would bet every soul in his laboratory on it.
Now Earth had untreatable tuberculosis, virulent syphilis, AIDS, and herpes simplex type II. Everything was becoming resistant to penicillin—Agonostis' one-time favorite drug, since it made fornication so safe—and other drugs were becoming less effective, too. And even if he got those problems licked—and his lab techs were working as fast as they could to beat every single one of Jezerael's diseases—Agonostis figured his archenemy probably had new strains of Black Plague and typhoid waiting in the wings.
Agonostis had worked the condom angle as hard as he could, but people were getting smarter. They were realizing that condoms broke or slipped at inopportune times, or were defective—and they were starting to abstain.
Business was looking bad. And fornication used to be such a fun line of work.
What I need, he thought, is a miracle.
Unfortunately, miracles were hard to come by in Hell.
Back | Next
Contents
Framed